Hello! We have a big update today: ghosts & curses, druid villages, potion identification, and some major loot, prices & crafting rebalances.

We'd also like to give a special thanks to Juki. Having started out as a fan of the game, Juki has taken on a development role, putting an immense amount of work into testing and implementing changes for this update. Welcome to the team Juki!

The Keepers Guild

These nature-loving druids call themselves "The Keepers" and offer a variety of shops and services to the player.

• Each game world spawns with 3 village locations. Services include:
  
  • Baker - sells food and recipes.
    
  • Cleric - answers your questions about the guild and can remove curses.
    
  • Healer - sells medicines and potions.
    
  • Staffsmith - sells staffs.
    
  • Trader - buys and sells general goods.
• Each shop has additional unique items sold only by the guild including 3 new foods & recipes, 3 new medicine items, and 2 new staffs.
  
• The Keepers only accept payment in the form of Polished Stone. The player will have to sell them items to gain their currency.
  
• Added new flower types: Daisies and Lilies which surround each village.

These villages offer a nice hub for Magic or staff-based builds; more to come when the reputation system is added. Reputation will unlock guild membership, new quests, along with guild bonuses.

Item Curses

Items can now become cursed by ghosts, or from drinking a cursed potion.

• There are 4 possible curses, each with a different effect.
  
• If a cursed item is in the player's inventory the curse will be applied, whether its equipped or not!
  
• When the player has a cursed item, a cursed wound icon will also appear. This should help remind players when they are affected by a cursed item in their inventory.
  
• A Druid Cleric will remove curses for a fee. Alternatively, you could try ignore them. How bad can they be?

Curses were added to encourage swapping between and using multiple weapons, but also to increase the complexity and difficulty of later dungeons. What can we say? It's a dangerous world.

Ghosts

Ghosts are a new creature type, found throughout Enalia in both castles and caves.

• Ghosts have their own behavior patterns and do not directly chase and attack the player the same as typical enemies.
  
• They can walk through walls and over top of blocked tiles, and will sometimes (but not always) use their powers on nearby targets.
  
• When a ghost is nearby, the status effect "Frightened" is applied. This is a small debuff, but also acts as a warning.
  
• Ghosts are stealth enemies, meaning they can only be seen up close, and will turn invisible if they are too many tiles away. They can also decide to disappear entirely and will reappear at a later time.
  
• Attacking a ghost directly will not deal damage!

Ghosts go hand in hand with curses and should add some difficult decision making pressure. Passing turns to heal or staying on the same dungeon floor for long periods of time is no longer as safe as it used to be.

Potion Identification

All potions are now by default "Unidentified", and will have to be identified for the player to learn what they are.

• Drinking an unidentified potion will trigger the potion's effects the same as normal, however if the potion happens to be a weapon poison, the poison is applied to self.
  
• Potions can be identified for a price at a city Alchemist or Potion shop. They will identify an unlimited number of potions for a single fee.
  
• Potions are automatically identified if the associated alchemy recipe is known.
  
• Added Alchemy ability "Potion Identification" which causes ALL potions to automatically identify.
  
• Added Survival ability "Chemical Instincts" which causes basic potions to automatically identify.
  
• Added new Cursed Potion, which has a small chance to appear in chests or other loot containers.

Potions were very strong and useful for all builds, therefore we wanted their usage to require more investment.

Potion Identification is also a roguelike classic. With this change we tip our hats to the many great roguelikes who have come before.

Tile Inspection

All tiles on the overworld map can now be right-clicked, revealing details about the location, including active quests, and when it was last visited.


Tiles are also highlighted blue if there is a quest at that location. The highlight appears even in fog of war.

Price Rebalance

• Prices, along with shop inventories, have been rebalanced across the board.
  
• Shop buy and sell prices no longer change over time. This may be re-introduced when the Merchanting skill is added, but for the time being it should make prices feel more sensible.
  
• Replaced dollar signs "$" with a "g" (gold) to signify the currency type. Similarly, Druid shops will use "p" to signify their currency (polished stone).
  
• Tweaked shop discounts. Selling to the correct shop will now have a more significant benefit.
  
• Buy and sell prices are now rounded to the nearest 2, 5, 10, or 100 depending on the value.
  
• Shops no longer sell potent or superb items.
  
• Fixed shop inventory lists. Many items that previously were not bought by shops are now allowed.
  

Without a proper merchanting system, the price fluctuations over time was more annoying than anything else. With this change, it's easier for the player to learn prices and make reasonable decisions, and also for us to balance prices.

Especially impacted are food, potion, and raw resource sell prices. Selling these items should no longer be so easy of an approach to profit-making.

Our intention long-term is to increase the difficulty and skill required to hit that point where the player feels they have all the items they need, and gold is no longer valuable.

Loot Rebalance

• Castle dungeons now always have a loot room on the bottom floor. If the bottom floor is a boss floor, the loot room will be behind the boss room.
  
• Removed gold and silver loot chests from their previous locations, which were spread out on many dungeon floors, replacing them instead with standard chests.
  
• To make up for the above changes, we've rebalanced the amount and type of loot found in all chest types.
  
• Kitchens are now far less likely to reward gourmet or cooked foods.
  
• Reduced the amount of arrows and bolts found in barrels and crates.
  
• The starter dungeon chest has been tweaked to not reward massively expensive or late-game items.

Other Changes

• Increased game world size, which is now about ~70% larger.
  
• Torches are now placed throughout castle dungeons next to doors or along hallways.
  
• Added new bandit elite types, including the "Bandit Mauler", and 3 new unique bandit elite items.
  
• Added new option to buy a drink for adventurers at the inn.
  
• Recolored cave rock traps to be easier to spot.
  
• Enemies will now prioritize attacking the player over summoned targets.
  
• Toggled abilities now only grant XP when an enemy is visible.
  
• Favorited items will no longer show up in the salvage list.
  
• Added handful of new dreams, which have a chance to show on the level up screen.
  
• Reduced chance Spire Sentinels to step back from the player. Increased Spire Sentinel armor penetration.
  
• Medicine can no longer be applied if a medicine of the same type has a currently active status effect (same as with potions).
  
• Cripple wounds now prevent the use of mobility-based abilities (such as jump). The Bear Trap status effect does the same.
  
• Arrow and bolt recipes now require less feathers, and return more arrows/bolts (from 5 to 10).
  
• Increased the amount of rock speckling in caves; more scattered rocks, but smaller clumps.
  
• Survival ability "Living off the Land" buffed to +3 turns, from previous +1 turns.
  
• Storage chests now apply same sorting type as specified in inventory.
  
• Sorting type no longer affects favorite items, which stay in the order they were favorited.
  
• Reduced starting weight to 75.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed lag issue in towns.
  
• Fixed ability icons still showing highlighted despite player not having enough energy.
  
• Fixed shop inventories not refreshing correctly, sometimes appearing blank or with only 1 or 2 items.
  
• Fixed vision blocked when walking in outside areas that are within the area of a building.
  
• Fixed stairs going in wrong direction in Moreld's tower
  
• Fixed unleash fury ability requiring a mace instead of bludgeon
  
• Fixed bandit elite quest rooms not placing.
  

v0.3.5b

• Temporarily remove ghosts and curses. Ghosts were not working as intended and will be added back in the next update.